They crushed their quota, so we gave them a team. And a calendar full of forecast calls, coaching check-ins, and pipeline reviews. No roadmap. No leadership training. Just... "figure it out."

Sound familiar?

The truth is that many first-time sales managers are promoted without being prepared—and everyone pays the price. Reps burn out. Pipelines stall. Performance tanks. And leaders scramble to triage what should’ve been done differently from day one.

In this candid, high-impact panel discussion, four sales leadership veterans unpack why our current approach is broken—and what to do about it. 

• Current State: What we’re getting wrong about frontline sales manager development.
• Impact: How underprepared managers derail rep development and revenue.
• Solutions: Practical frameworks, proven strategies, and real-world tools to rebuild the first-time manager experience and accelerate their success.

Meet the expert panel:

• David Brock, author of Sales Manager Survival Guide: Lessons From Sales' Front Lines
• Rebecca Gebhardt, author of Leaderboard to Leadership: How To Earn and Excel In Your First Sales Leadership Role
• Dr. Louise Korver, author of Successful Onboarding: A New Lens for Mid-Career Leaders

Meet your panel moderator (and co-panelist):

• Mike Kunkle, author of The Building Blocks of Sales Enablement and creator of Sales Coaching Excellence and Sales Management Foundations courses. 

If you lead sales teams or build the programs that support them, this session will challenge the way you think about frontline leadership development—and give you practical tools to help managers succeed before they sink.

Dave is the author of Sales Manager Survival Guide and CEO of Partners In EXCELLENCE.  Partners In EXCELLENCE is a boutique consulting company helping its clients innovate and dominate their markets. They are leaders in business and Go To Market strategies.

2x Author and Status Quo Crusher, Rebecca has spent her career looking at old problems in new ways. She's a 3x founder with 25 years of building and scaling sales teams. Rebecca helps corporate clients empower sales leaders at all levels, which makes an immediate impact on recruiting, retention, and revenue. Her latest book, Leaderboard to Leadership: How to Earn and Excel in Your First Sales Leadership Role addresses the often-ignored, but critical role of frontline sales leaders.

Louise is the former head of Executive Development at several multinational organizations (Ingersoll Rand, Bank of America, AT&T, EMC/Dell, HJ Heinz), and is a skilled designer of intimate board retreats, large global offsite meetings, and educational experiences for sophisticated learners. The focus of her work with senior executives and their teams is to improve organizational alignment through executive assessment, coaching, and consulting.

Mike Kunkle is a recognized expert on sales enablement, sales effectiveness, sales training, and sales coaching. He’s spent over 30 years helping companies drive dramatic revenue growth through best-in-class enablement strategies and proven effective sales systems.
 
Mike is the founder of Transforming Sales Results, LLC and currently works as the Vice President of Sales Effectiveness Services for SPARXiQ, where he designs sales training, delivers workshops, and helps clients improve sales results through a variety of sales effectiveness services.
 
He collaborated to develop SPARXiQ’s Modern Sales Foundations™ curriculum and authored the SPARXiQ’s Sales Coaching Excellence™ course. Mike's book, The Building Blocks of Sales Enablement, is available on Amazon and the course is available through FFWD. See https://linktr.ee/mikekunkle for more.